Before the show began, new mom Zoe, 40, headed to her seat with husband Rodger Berman. Clad in a huge ivory fur coat, The Rachel Zoe Project star stopped to hug and say hello to a woman in the front row — seated right next to Zoe's old pal Goreski, 34. Zoe declined to acknowledge her old employee in any way.

"He kept staring at her thinking that she would say something to him but she turned her back on him as she was speaking to the woman and then walked off," explains a witness.

Now a celeb stylist on his own with a reality show, It's a Brad Brad World, Goreski had hope to bury the hatchet with Zoe at the Marchesa event, also attended by Vogue's Anna Wintour, Petra Nemcova, Stacy Keibler, Jenna Dewan and Olivia Palermo.